EDIT 2018-10-24: If you have the Into Shadow campaign completed, I'd strongly recommend my new deck instead.
AP Mid Gauntlet Grinder (Set 5 Update!)
Inspired by
Paladins & Minotaurs, this is my current go-to gauntlet farming deck ever since I lost interest in playing
FoA Hooru flier gauntlet.
Play it out like TJP mid, using stuff like
Suffocate and
Anointer of the Faithful to hold off early aggression while you ramp up to Tavgod.
Inquisitor's Blade on a
Crownwatch Paladin can also easily steer you to victory (pun intended). This deck has a good amount of lifesteal for handling grindy matchups and ai decks with ultra-fast starts like Shogunate Warfare. Try and hit
Copperhall Paladin with the bond effect of anointer since it can bond with both Paladins
and minotaurs, making it very easy to get out for a reduced cost (or even free)!
Market choices:
-
Argenport Banner to help fix powerscrew when needed.
-
Vanquish to handle big threads on demand.
-
Valkyrie Enforcer as a combination silence and flyer, for when you need both a body on the board and a silence on a small unit.
-
Inquisitor Makto as a recurring big threat besides Tavgod. He's fantastic in long matches.
-
Harsh Rule I'm not so sure about. I'm intending it as a "panic button" for when things go catastrophically wrong, yet I haven't seen need to pull it after 5 gauntlet runs. Will probably reconsider it.
Results so far, as of 2018-08-11:
- 5x 7-0 wins stomping over grab bag, company of exiles, sudden death, and two wins versus labyrinth treasures.
- 1x 6-1 loss to the Labyrinth treasures. My first 2
Auric Interrogator and 2 tavrods were all silenced immediately after I played them, then the AI got out a
Knight-Chancellor Siraf who pulled a
Whirling Duo...not a good time.
- 1x 3-1 loss to my own incompetence when I underestimated the Strangers deck and chose not to Slay a stranger at a crucial moment.
Changes:
Removed
Copperhall Porter since, even though he brought up our unit count to a nice even 30 and had Minotaur synergy, he just wasn't doing that great at his primary job of "helping us ramp up to Tavgod as early as possible".
Lingering Influence on the other hand is laser-focused on helping with power, and
Sabotage is a fantastic card for shutting down potentially threatening cards from the AI.
Lingering Influence
x2
1
Sabotage
x2
1
Suffocate
x4
2
Anointer of the Faithful
x4
2
Crownwatch Paladin
x4
2
Vanquisher's Blade
x4
2
Vara's Favor
x3
3
Auric Interrogator
x4
3
Slay
x4
3
Valkyrie Enforcer
x3
3
Winchest Merchant
x4
4
Auric Runehammer
x2
4
Copperhall Paladin
x4
4
Inquisitor's Blade
x2
5
Tavrod, Auric Broker
x4
Justice Sigil
x6
Shadow Sigil
x5
Argenport Banner
x3
Crest of Vengeance
x4
Crownwatch Standard
x3
Seat of Vengeance
x4
View Deck on Shiftstoned
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgWOrw_5K5g
But oh wait we have the insta kill all the cards on the bored to help us stall right? lulz nope the decks this deck struggles against is a rush deck and the other shielding deck ai plays that has all shields and has cards to give them all immune to spells so thats kinda useless so it forces you to get the legendary version that goes through sed shields but now you have to hope you can make it to 6 energy or hope that you even get a market card because god knows when that will happen because ive lost sooo many games because i could never land a market guy to bring out the aoe bored clear.
Dont get me wrong this deck is "good", but not super hype mode that all the comments/owner claims it to be. The hype moments (when the stars and the sea align) are amazing and fun but they are rare or last for the first 2-4 games..... SOOOOOOOOOO many times ive got Tav and spent the next 3 turns with "No valid cards" for both wep and monsters and now my tav is dead, computer now has full control over the bored to the point there is no coming back from unless you got the luck of the gods and got a market card to pull out the aoe kill. i have a few ideas to make it more consistent but am not even sure they will even work to the point to let us stall out long enough or last long enough to make the stars align.
So as of now here is my version of this deck and it seems to be going smoother, i commented on the changes so i wont post why/what i replaced as its all listed there and the logic/play of the changes and in no way take credit for the deck, its just changes i made for people who suffering with my problems
Remake of this deck
So as of now i got it to at least you can make it to 5/7 or 6/7 but its def not consistent
In regards to your changes: I think there's something to be said for swapping out the Crownwatch Paladins for Brightmace Paladins even if it makes the 3-cost slot fairly crowded. They do synergize well with Anointer and more lifesteal is always good. I find it rather amusing that after complaining about Makto in the market and the lack of earlygame stall, you're still running a market Makto and have added literally 0 additional earlygame. In fact, you're kind of opening yourself up to more frustration by running Dark Return over Sabotage IMHO since the latter will help handle some of the bigger bombs the AI will throw out - stuff like harsh rule and charge rod come to mind.
I'm not trying to make it come across as a "git gud" comment, but it feels to me like you're misplaying this deck and are lashing out instead of trying to learn from your mistakes. Best of luck with your new variant, even if I don't agree with some of the changes, all the same.
I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but the deck feels really slow (I'm often playing depleted power for 3-4 cost creatures). If I can't grab early momentum (and I often feel way behind with smaller creatures than my opponent), I'm cooked - even drawing a Tavrod barely slows down multitudes of flyers.
You say to play it out like AP mid - could you elaborate? I've never played AP mid in gauntlet or ranked, so I feel like I'm making all the wrong choices. :(
Your goal in your starting hand is to have
- 3 power at minimum (or 2 power and at least 1 way to fetch more)
- 1 small minion
- 1 antiaggro tool from 1)
If you have those 3 things, you're golden. If you're stuck at 2 power with few antiaggro tools after your mulligan, you're basically hoping the AI also has a slow start. Once you can hit 3 power you're in much better shape since Enforcer and our Merchant come into play, so you have a wider range of tools and can stall for tavrod much more easily.
Hope this helps!
I don't have any Maktos, so I moved a Tavrod into the market instead and added a Copperhall Porter to the maindeck (since I saw you used to run them). What do you think of this? Any other suggestions (besides crafting Makto)?
7-0
6-1 lose to a shard bargain drawing a lot of units early game, but all the other fights were a piece of cake
6-1 lose to shifting alliances due to faster small multifaction units
I think the biggest issue is the way that bosses play aggressively. If you don't draw power and small units, you are gonna lose. Still a great deck.
Thank you.
One thing I tested in AP mid with Merchants was the Harsh Rule. I thought the exact same thing that it would be a reset button. I used it one time but honestly I think it just slowed down the time to victory. It never really felt all that necessary. Even games I thought I'd need it I found a better line without it. So it might be a cut like you say. But I'm still semi convinced it's right even though (both of our) results seem to say otherwise.
It's interesting to hear that our experience with Harsh Rule is about the same; I've found it winds up slowing down my own board more than it slows down the AI, given the fairly aggressive curve in this list. I've been testing out an Inquisitor's Blade instead as a replacement to reliably get flying on Tavrod, but I'm not yet sure I'll stick with it tbh. Time will tell.
7-0 each, absolutely piss easy. Thanks again for sharing.
I was looking for something fast but this is beyond stupid.
This makes Gauntlet actually fun.